Remarks at the closing plenary session of Urban 21
Dr. Irene Wiese - von Ofen, President, International Federation of Housing
and Planning (IFHP)
Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am reporting in the name of
Forum 4:
The HABITAT Professionals Forum acts as a forum of urban planners,
architects, surveyors and engineers and is made up of the following
institutions:
- IFHP - International Federation for Housing and Planning, The Hague
- ISoCaRP - International Society of City and Regional Planners, The Hague
- UIA - Union Internationale des Architectes, Paris
- FIG - Fédération Internationale des Géomètres, Copenhagen
- CASSAD - Centre of African Settlements Studies and Development, Ibadan,
Nigeria
- AUDI - Arabian Urban Development Institute, Riyadh
The Forum sees itself as an initiative supporting UNCHS. By organizing
parallel events that compliment UN-initiatives in Housing and Settlement-issues
it wants to provide a forum for the international exchange of ideas and thoughts
concerning the future development of cities.
The thoughts concerning the World Report Urban 21 and its connection to
the HABITAT Agenda (the support of the implementation of the HABITAT Agenda
being the main goal of the Professionals Forum) that were reported at the Forum
4 can be summarized in 5 main points:
- As professionals (i.e. urban planners, architects, surveyors and
engineers) we are continuously facing the task of delivering high quality work
and of observing the corresponding professional ethics.
- This includes for example taking a strong stand and reminding both the
society and politics of keeping even unpopular facts in mind.
- In advising and mobilizing the population of our cities we must ensure to act
as fair moderators, to avoid segregation and to find opportunities and
possibilities for active participation, as citizens, as well as decision-makers
and investors. We need to make the know-how of our professions available and
accessible in an interdisciplinary and combined effort. In moderating between
conflicting interests we must not act in a way
that only helps to support the strongest (but it has to be kept in mind that
strength does not necessarily need to be equivalent to capital and its global
influences; grass-roots organizations and civil society organizations are
developing influential strengths, too.).
- Developing and making use of networked strategies is the challenge experts
(trained in their respective fields) are facing in order to promote the
interdisciplinary action and the creation of independent, self-supporting
structures in less developed and developing countries. Therefore, we must
disseminate the know-how and must make professional and technical skills
accessible by exchanging information, helping and assisting each other and
offering opportunities for dialogue - all of this not just on the institutional
level, but also through our personal commitment. (Direct (face-to-face)
conversations remain the most effective means.).
- In our urbanizing world the fight against poverty, lack of education and lack
of freedom (due to limited options for the poor) is our main task. But it must
go together with facing the challenge of creating beauty, of creating spaces
that people can feel comfortable in - and everyone is entitled to enjoy the
beauty of his or her surroundings.
- The main condition for this is - as we all know - the access to ownership
of goods and of land as well as several necessities of life such as clean
drinking water and functioning sewage, infrastructure, safe living environments,
the observation of human rights and the consideration of all the issues that
have been discussed at this URBAN 21 conference in the past three days. In order
to achieve this the importance needs to be stressed again of establishing the
necessary administrative capacities, the creation and maintenance of land
information systems and the building of the necessary technical and educational
infrastructure. The participation of the respective professionals for all these
issues is mandatory.
- At the same time the social conscience of our profession needs to be
strengthened. Even though it is obvious and well-known that this and the
required integrative approach to the challenges of the future urban development
will necessitate changes in the education of young urban planners and
architects, it still remains to be translated into action. This is one of the
goals the Professionals Forum with its researchers and professors wants to
promote, especially in the international comparison. In this sense the quality
of our urban environment is strongly determined by the quality of well-educated
experts with strong social skills, who are able to initiate and aid the most
important capital / value of our cities: the capacities of the citizens
themselves. Our help and determination can then contribute to averting the
danger of 'divided cities', as they were defined by the podium discussion
chaired by Klaus Töpfer on the first day of this conference.
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